The singer, whose real name is Robert
Kyagulanyi, appeared in court on a prior treason charge after he and other
opposition politicians allegedly stoned Museveni’s convoy during a campaign
rally in August last year.

“He was charged with annoying the
president” in relation to the same case, his lawyer Asuman Basalirwa told
AFP.

Zimbabwe opposition group, the Zimbabwe
African People’s Union (Zapu), intends to establish a government in exile as an
alternative to the current Zanu-PF-led government, Pindula News reported on
Monday.

Mark Mbayiwa, treasurer-general of the
party made the assertions during a rally in Johannesburg last week.

“We are going to form a government in exile
and present it to the people of Zimbabwe and the international community as an
alternative to the incompetence currently taking place back home,” said
Mbayiwa.

The two rival political camps in DR Congo
Friday forged a pact on forming a government, six months after President Felix
Tshisekedi took power from veteran ruler Joseph Kabila, officials said.

Tshisekedi was elected in December to
replace Kabila who presided over sub-Saharan Africa’s biggest country for
nearly two decades.

He took power at the end of January but has
struggled to form a government as Kabila’s Common Front for Congo (FCC)
coalition won comfortable majorities in both houses of parliament as well as
provincial assemblies.

Kabila’s supporters also dominated
elections for governorships across the country.

Mr Kangudia is expected to hold private
talks with Rwanda’s minister of health, Diane Gashumba, at Serena Hotel in
Rwanda’s border town of Gisenyi.

An official confirmed that the ministers
are expected to discuss how to improve screening at the border, preparedness
and how to strengthen health services.

“The ministers will discuss methods on how
to co-operate better in managing this Ebola epidemic in Goma and further assess
mechanisms to prevent it from spreading into Rwanda,” Zacharie Gahungu, adviser
to Ms Gashumba, told The EastAfrican.

Heavily armed al-Shabaab on Sunday night
attempted to storm a military base manned by Somali forces in Elasha-biyaha
locality, prompting brief gunfire between the sides.

According to the sources, the African Union
Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) have dispatched reinforcement to the base. After firing
several motor shells on a base of Somali National Army (SNA), al-Shabaab
reportedly retreated.

The mayor of Mogadishu has died after being
badly wounded in an al-Shabaab extremist attack in his office last week, the
government of Somalia has announced.

Abdirahman Omar Osman was a naturalised
Briton who returned to Somalia to help rebuild the war-torn country. He spent
17 years in the UK including a stint as housing manager at Ealing council in
west London.

He died on Thursday in Qatar, where he had
been airlifted for treatment after the attack on 24 July. Officials said he had
been in a coma.

His son, Mohamed Omar, a student at
London’s Queen Mary University, said: “Today the people of Mogadishu lose their
mayor; but I lost my father. May Allah grant him the highest rank of paradise.”

Was the African Union-mediated Peace accord
signed in February 2018 after a lengthy 18 months talk between 14 armed groups
and the central governments to prevent civilian attacks a regrettable step or a
commendable action? This remains questionable as one of the three armed-group
leaders given a key government position seems to abuse his power.

Since 2002, the Central African Republic
(CAR) has been experiencing deadly internal conflicts causing over 1.1 million
in a country of five million to either become internally displaced or become
refugees in neighbouring countries, mostly in Cameroon. The major causes of the
conflict have been related to religious identities, ethnic differences and
historical antagonism between the Muslim Séléka rebel fighters and the
Christian Anti-balaka militias.

Based on Human Rights Watch’s recent HR
findings, Abass, nicknamed as Bi Sidi Souleymane, leader of the 3R armed group,
Return, Reclamation and Rehabilitation, might still be a threat to the civilian
population in CAR. The now General Sidiki Abass, appointed by presidential
decree as the military adviser to the prime minister on special mixed units in
the northwest zone killed at least 46 civilians on May 21, 2019 in the Ouham
Pendé province.

Two months after the brutal attack on the
pro-democracy sit-in Khartoum, the Deputy Chairman of the Transitional Military
Council (TMC) Mohamed Hamdan Hemetti, wished they did not decide to clean the
area of Colombia, which was a pretext to the implementation of a plan to break
the protest site and kill over a hundred protesters on 3 June.

The TMC has always denied ordering the
attack on the main site protest site outside the army headquarters in Khartoum.
They stress they decided to break up an area nearby the sit-in called Colombia
infested by drug dealers after consulting the Attorney General and the Ministry
of Justice.

Addressing a graduation ceremony of the
“Rapid Support Forces” officers at Khartoum’s Intelligence Institute
on Monday, Hemetti confessed that there was someone who planned to break up the
sit-in and should be identified.

“We would not have decided to clean up
the Colombia area, and if we knew it would be a gateway to a plan to be
implemented. We would not have approached it and kept it despite its drug and
other inconveniences,” he said.

An estimated 28,000 people are facing
serious starvation in South Sudan’s Aweil State, a minister said Monday.

According to state minister for
agriculture, John Amar Akook, the majority of those at risk of starvation are
within the rural areas.

Akook, Juba Monitor reported, said the food
gap has contributed to looming poverty and hunger in rural areas after seasonal
rains caused flooding, adding that people living in lowlands are most affected
and unable to cultivate their farms due to floods.

Some 275,000, a recent Integrated Food
Security Phase Classification assessment report indicated, have been facing
food crisis between May and July in the same area.

Ten months of relative peace in South Sudan
has triggered a rush of investment, raising inflows four-fold this fiscal year
to an expected $1bn.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) for the
nation that’s been in the throes of civil war was about $250m in 2016/2017,
according to South Sudan Investment Authority’s secretary-general, Abraham
Maliet Mamer. Statistics for 2017/2018 are still being compiled.

“I am optimistic in 2019/2020 we will go
beyond $1bn if this peace prevails,” Mamer said in an interview in the capital,
Juba, on Friday.

About 400 investors from Africa, Asia and
Europe are looking at the country’s oil, mineral and agriculture industries,
Mamer said. SA plans to invest $1bn partly for oil exploration, and MTN will
spend $30m on its telecommunications network in the country, Mamer said.
Investors from Dubai and Egypt have also expressed interest, he said.

The Moroccan authorities must impartially
and effectively investigate the use of excessive force by the security forces
against Sahrawi protesters in Laayoune who were celebrating Algeria’s football
victory in the Africa Cup of Nations on 19 July, said Amnesty International
today.

The organization has verified video footage
and gathered witness testimony indicating that security forces, who were
heavily present on the streets and in cafés during the football match, used
excessive force, throwing rocks to disperse the crowds of demonstrators and sparking
clashes. According to two eyewitnesses, Sabah Njourni a 24-year-old woman, was
killed after she was mowed down by two Moroccan auxiliary force cars

“There is clear evidence to suggest that
the Moroccan security forces’ initial response to the Sahrawi protests, which
began peacefully, was excessive, and provoked violent clashes which could and
should have been avoided. The authorities must impartially and effectively
investigate the attacks on protesters and bring to justice anyone suspected to
be responsible in fair trials,” said Magdalena Mughrabi, Deputy Middle East and
North Africa Director at Amnesty International.

Aminatou Haidar, Sahrawi human rights
defense icon was paid a glowing tribute by an American newspaper, labeling her
the “Gandhi of Western Sahara” in a long portrait of her career and
fight for peace.

In its Saturday issue, the newspaper
“OZY” dedicated a long article to Aminatou Haidar, president of the
Association of Human Rights of Sahrawis (CODESA).

“Late one night in 1987, Moroccan
policemen arrived at a house in the occupied city of Laayoune, the capital of
Western Sahara, and demanded to speak to Aminatou Haidar. It would only take 10
minutes, they told her panic-stricken family; but those minutes stretched into
days, weeks, months and then years,” wrote journalist Ruairi Casey.

“The 20-year-old was disappeared
without trial to a secret facility not far from her home, where guards tortured
her, subjecting her to starvation and threats of rape — the price for painting
graffiti and circulating leaflets calling for a free Western Sahara.”

The Industrial Court in Swaziland has ruled
that public service workers must make a new application before they can legally
strike.

Unions have been in dispute with government
over cost of living salary rises. A planned strike in January 2019 was halted
because the Government of absolute monarch King Mswati III said it was
political and threatened the national interest.

In Swaziland political parties are banned
from taking part in elections and groups advocating for democracy are outlawed
under the Suppression of Terrorism Act.

Four public service unions calling
themselves the Public Services Associations (PSA) had joined forces to strike.
They were the National Public Service and Allied Workers Union (NAPSAWU),
Swaziland National Association of Teachers (SNAT), Swaziland Nurses Association
(SNA) and the Swaziland Government Accountants Personnel (SNAGAP).

Six children died from diarrhoea in four
days in Swaziland / eSwatini and about another 1,000 others have been treated
for the infection caused by the rota virus, a senior official said on Monday.

Deaths from this preventable disease occur
in the kingdom every year. But the government, ruled by King Mswati III as the
last absolute monarch in sub-Saharan Africa, is broke and continually fails to
tackle to problem.

The latest round of deaths was announced by
Director of Health Services Vusi Magagula on Monday (5 August 2019), the APA
news agency reported.

‘These fatal cases are a result of delayed
treatment,’ he said. The deaths occurred at two health centers in the south of
the kingdom.